well-considered policy.
In January, at the instance of party leaders, an appropriation of two
million dollars was voted by Congress "to defray any expenses in
relation to the intercourse between the United States and foreign
nations"; and James Monroe was appointed Minister Extraordinary to
France and Spain, to aid Livingston and Pinckney in "enlarging and more
effectually securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi
and in the territories eastward thereof."

Meantime, Napoleon's colonial schemes had received a decisive check. The
transfer of Louisiana had been delayed by the opposition of Godoy, who
had returned to royal favor in Spain; Leclerc's invading army had been
worn away by the attrition of incessant war with the negroes; a second
army had been decimated by yellow fever; and finally Leclerc himself had
succumbed to the dread destroyer, leaving the remnants of the French
troops to their fate. Without the most extraordinary exertions, Santo
Domingo was lost; and what was Louisiana without the island which was
the very heart of the projected colonial system? The First Consul was
almost ready to abandon a project which after all had originated in
Talleyrand's brain rather than in his own. What he sought was a fair
pretext to cover his retreat from failure.

Livingston plied the French Ministers with arguments to prove that it
was good policy to put the Americans in possession of the Island of
Orleans. One day, while he was repeating the old story, Talleyrand
suddenly asked what he would give for the whole of Louisiana. For the
moment Livingston was nonplussed, and declined to make any offer.
Talleyrand repeated his question and Livingston replied that twenty
millions of francs would be a fair price, if France would pay the
spoliation claims of American citizens since the Treaty of 1800.
Talleyrand demurred: the sum was too small. Thereupon Livingston
promised to advise with Monroe who was expected soon.

Monroe, as it happened, arrived on this very day. On the following day
Livingston learned casually from Marbois, a minister who stood very
close to the First Consul, that Napoleon had named a hundred million
francs and the payment of the American spoliation claims as the price of
Louisiana. Further conversation elicited the information that Napoleon
would consider an offer of sixty million francs with claims amounting to
twenty millions more. For a fortnight the two envoys, at the risk of
losing e